Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis: Investigation, Resignation, and Successor

Mark McGinnis, a longtime Outagamie County Circuit Court judge in Appleton, Wisconsin, announced in August 2025 that he would resign from the bench effective February 1, 2026, after a state criminal investigation into his decision to jail a cement contractor over a private financial dispute. A special prosecutor declined to file charges, but the probe followed years of controversy over McGinnis’s courtroom conduct, including a reversed contempt sentence and a suspended truancy court.

The Jailing That Led to the Investigation

On December 20, 2021, Hortonville cement contractor Tyler Barth appeared before McGinnis for a routine probation review tied to an unrelated felony conviction for fleeing an officer. During the hearing, McGinnis confronted Barth about a $7,000 deposit Barth was holding for a weather-delayed concrete job. The customer, Wayne Dorsey, was married to Paula Dorsey, who worked as an employee for a different circuit judge in the same Outagamie County courthouse.¹

Barth had not been arrested or charged in connection with the deposit, and the dispute was not before the court. McGinnis ordered him to repay the money by 11:15 a.m. that day or serve 90 days in jail. When Barth asked for 24 hours to gather the funds, the judge refused. “As soon as that’s paid, you’ll be released a minute later when I find out,” McGinnis said on the record.²

Barth spent three days in jail. Defense attorney Kirk Everson then intervened and challenged the legal basis for the incarceration, and McGinnis reversed the sentence, saying he was “reluctant to get into a lot of details in front of a packed courtroom.”² Barth later returned the full deposit, and the Dorseys’ fraud complaint with the Grand Chute Police Department was closed as a civil matter.¹

Text messages later obtained by reporters showed Wayne Dorsey had pressured Barth before the hearing, writing: “You do know that my wife works for a judge” and “We are personal friends with half the lawyers in the valley.” Barth said he saw Paula Dorsey in the courtroom the day he was jailed.¹ McGinnis said the debt came to his attention while he was reviewing arrest warrants, but police records showed the Dorseys did not file their criminal complaint until two weeks after the jailing.²

University of Wisconsin Law School professor John P. Gross told reporters there was “no real justification” for McGinnis’s actions, explaining that criminal hearings cannot be used to settle civil disputes and that a judge may only jail a probationer on a contempt finding or on a probation officer’s recommendation for a specific violation. Neither applied.¹

The Criminal Probe and Why No Charges Were Filed

The Wisconsin Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation in early 2023, and Wisconsin Watch first reported the probe in January 2024.³ Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis recused her office due to a conflict of interest, and in March 2024 the court appointed La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke as special prosecutor.⁴

On August 28, 2025, Gruenke announced he would not file charges. He cited three reasons: McGinnis had acknowledged through his attorney that he could have handled the matter differently; McGinnis had agreed to resign; and prosecuting a judge for conduct during a court proceeding would “challenge the separation of powers in our legal system and raise unique questions of whether a judge’s legal errors during a court hearing should result in criminal investigation and possible charges.”⁵ “This isn’t a case to test those parameters,” Gruenke said, “especially since he acknowledged that he should have done it differently.”⁶

Criminal prosecution of a sitting Wisconsin judge for conduct on the bench is essentially without precedent. Judicial historian Joseph Ranney and Wisconsin Judicial Commission executive director Jeremiah Van Hecke both said no sitting judge in the state’s history has been criminally charged for official judicial conduct. Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather noted that a misconduct in public office charge was theoretically possible but that a referral to the Judicial Commission was far more likely.³

Barth said after the decision that he planned to seek an attorney and file a civil lawsuit. “That’s crazy, the fact that nobody’s going to prosecute him for it, that’s insane,” he said.⁶

Earlier Controversies on the Bench

A Reversed Contempt Sentence

In June 2017, during a hearing in the human trafficking case of Brian D. Mitchell, McGinnis held Mitchell in contempt for rolling his eyes, shuffling papers, and giving the judge what McGinnis described as a “fuck-you look.” The judge sentenced Mitchell to six months in jail. Wisconsin law caps summary contempt at 30 days and a $500 fine. Mitchell served 42 days before being released.⁷

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals summarily reversed the contempt order in July 2018, ruling that McGinnis had imposed an “unauthorized penalty” that exceeded statutory limits. The state did not contest the appeal. The appeals court also noted that McGinnis failed to make a clear record of the contemptuous behavior and did not give Mitchell a chance to speak before imposing the sanction.⁸⁹

The Truancy Court

McGinnis also presided over the Appleton Area School District’s truancy court, which drew heavy criticism in 2018. Attorney Duane McCrary, hired by the district to review the program, recommended that McGinnis no longer preside. McCrary reported that the judge’s conduct was “traumatizing” for some students, that he bullied them, called them “stupid,” and became “intensely angry.” McCrary also found that McGinnis had threatened students with electronic monitoring after an appeals court had already told him he lacked the authority to impose it.¹⁰

At a December 2018 public meeting, community members and former students described the court as a “pipeline to prison.” Parents testified that their children had been sent to shelter care, placed on GPS monitoring, and ordered to perform excessive community service, and raised concerns about the judge’s tone toward students of color. Some described students experiencing anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts tied to the court process.¹¹ The district superintendent apologized to students and families, and the school-based truancy court was suspended for the remainder of the 2018–2019 school year.¹⁰

Resignation Terms and Successor

McGinnis submitted his resignation letter to Governor Tony Evers on August 27, 2025, with an effective date of February 1, 2026. The letter noted that the timing would follow his 55th birthday, ensuring his eligibility for retirement benefits. He called service to his home county “the greatest privilege of my professional career” and said he planned to pursue judicial education in the United States and internationally. The letter did not mention the criminal investigation.⁴¹²

On November 7, 2025, Governor Evers appointed Whitney Healy to fill the Branch 1 vacancy. Healy will serve the remainder of the term, which ends July 31, 2027.¹³

Career Background

McGinnis graduated magna cum laude from Marquette University in 1993 and earned his law degree cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1996. Before taking the bench, he was a partner at a Fox Valley law firm focused on business and commercial litigation.¹⁴

He was first elected to the Outagamie County Circuit Court in 2005 at age 34. He ran unopposed in 2011, 2017, and April 2023, when he won a term that would have run through July 2029. Three different chief justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court appointed him to leadership positions within the state judiciary during his two decades on the bench.⁴¹²

1
Wisconsin Watch. Wisconsin Judge Mark McGinnis Court Investigation
2
Wisconsin Public Radio. Outagamie County Judge Mark McGinnis Investigation Jailing Dispute
3
Wisconsin Watch. Special Prosecutor Weighs Charges Against Appleton Judge
4
Wisconsin Public Radio. Wisconsin Judge McGinnis Jailing Cement Contractor Barth
5
WBAY. Resigning Outagamie Co. Judge Mark McGinnis Won’t Face Charges Jailing Man Over Private Dispute
6
Wisconsin Watch. Wisconsin Judge Will Resign, Won’t Face Criminal Charges for Jailing Cement Contractor
7
Wisconsin Justice Initiative. An Outagamie County Judge’s Justice: 42 Days in Jail for Eye-Rolling and Paper-Shuffling, Part I
8
Wisconsin Courts. State of Wisconsin v. Brian D. Mitchell, 2017AP1743-CR
9
Wisconsin Justice Initiative. Outagamie Judge McGinnis Issued Contempt Penalty Far Beyond What the Law Allows, Part III
10
The Post-Crescent. Reviewer Recommends Removing Judge Mark McGinnis From Truancy Court
11
The Post-Crescent. Appleton Residents Sound Off on Truancy Court, Judge Mark McGinnis
12
Wisconsin Courts. Judge Mark McGinnis Retirement
13
Urban Milwaukee. Gov. Evers Appoints Whitney Healy to the Outagamie County Circuit Court
14
Menn Law Firm. Mark McGinnis Attorney Profile